Decorative Gourd Season Has Come Round AGAIN, Moderfappers

I got your recipes right here for those leftover decorative gourds.

“As the earth brought foorth a bountye of decorative gourds that yeeldeth to the people the greatest pleasures of the autumne, the people cook’d them up to most won’drous huzzaws.” ~ Zillowians 8:11

Here we are again in decorative gourd season, faps. Hang them everywhere, around your necks, off your ears, while prancing to Renaissance Faire Megadeth under your gourd chandelier, whatevs. Then what?

Do you throw them out?

No, you heretic clamthwackers!

Try cooking up the little helldogs for your friends. Decorative gourds are just like traditional squash except for nipples and carbuncles and weird shit everywhere, and also a taste so bitter you’ll need to suck a Tylenol.

But doctors say they’re not toxic as long as you don’t juice them, so go ahead and bayonet one of these beauties like you’re some famous vegan fugu chef shouting, “Aaaaaah, sõ ngabúndù áte!” Which means, “this your big crying because you ate too much!”

Or just go all comfort foody, you slagmagnets.

Serve some up for your friends in a Fiesta Warty Spam Bake, or as a side dish to Bologna Jubilee. It’s melt in your mouth time, kitchen dicks! Because you want to know something? Agricultural cooperative extension people, the ones who’ve figured out how to waste fertilizer growing decorative gourds, can harvest 20,000 of these fuckers per acre! With more decorative gourds in production than waxed Italian salamis, you better believe we’ve got a national fall par-tay season on our hands, moschata-heads! Ever dance in a Conga line? No? Well, just wait, because when you get a bellyful of decorative gourds you’ll want to.

Or just forget the fucking recipes. It’s been suggested elsewhere, (but far be it from me to speak out of turn) that all-gourd reenactments are a great fall activity. At our house each year, Gourd of the Rings introduces second breakfast and elevenses, and then we talk about fighting wargourds and then we dream of what books we’d ban if we were the Gourd of Education. Like for sure, the highly offensive Gourd Love a Duck and Little Gourd Fauntleroy.

Did you know people around the world use gourds to make music, birdhouses, breast covers, and also to sheath their penises? Imagine the fun as everyone gathers ‘round the piano singing “Autumn Leaves” while wearing their penis sheaths and gourd bras.

Yeah, autumn. It’s that good.

Karen L. Sullivan writes humor in between more serious projects. Her work is published in The Belladonna, The Haven, Rainshadow Journal, Stonecoast Review, and several sailing magazines. Twitter: @karenlsullivan9.